For He is not the God of the dead but of the living, for all live to Him

 Then some of the Sadducees, who deny that there is a resurrection, came to Him and asked Him, saying:  "Teacher, Moses wrote to us that if a man's brother dies, having a wife, and he dies without children, his brother should take his wife and raise up offspring for his brother.  Now there were seven brothers.  And the first took a wife, and died without children.  And the second took her as wife, and he died childless.  Then the third took her, and in like manner the seven also; and they left no children, and died.  Last of all the woman died also.  Therefore, in the resurrection, whose wife does she become?  For all seven had her as wife."

Jesus answered and said to them, "The sons of this age marry and are given in marriage.  But those who are counted worthy to attain that age, and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry nor are given in marriage; nor can they die anymore, for they are equal to the angels and are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection.  But even Moses showed in the burning bush passage that the dead are raised, when he called the Lord 'the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.'  For He is not the God of the dead but of the living, for all live to Him."  Then some of the scribes answered and said, "Teacher, you have spoken well."  But after that they dared not question Him anymore.

- Luke 20:27-40

Our current readings in Luke take place in Holy Week.  Jesus is in the temple daily, teaching, but the religious leadership wish to do away with Him.   So they watched Him, and sent spies who pretended to be righteous, but that they might seize on His words, in order to deliver Him to the power and the authority of the governor.  Then they asked Him, saying, "Teacher, we know that You say and teach rightly, and You do not show personal favoritism, but teach the way of God in truth:  Is it lawful for us to pay taxes to Caesar or not?"  But He perceived their craftiness, and said to them, "Why do you test Me?  Show Me a denarius.  Whose image and inscription does it have?"  They answered and said, "Caesar's."  And He said to them, "Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's."  But they could not catch Him in His words in the presence of the people.  And they marveled at His answer and kept silent.

 Then some of the Sadducees, who deny that there is a resurrection, came to Him and asked Him, saying:  "Teacher, Moses wrote to us that if a man's brother dies, having a wife, and he dies without children, his brother should take his wife and raise up offspring for his brother.  Now there were seven brothers.  And the first took a wife, and died without children.  And the second took her as wife, and he died childless.  Then the third took her, and in like manner the seven also; and they left no children, and died.  Last of all the woman died also.  Therefore, in the resurrection, whose wife does she become?  For all seven had her as wife."    The Sadducees, unlike the Pharisees, did not believe in resurrection.  They were an aristocratic, landowning group based around Jerusalem and part of the hereditary priesthood whose duties included maintenance of the temple and participation in the Sanhedrin.  Also in contrast to the Pharisees, they rejected the oral tradition and accepted mainly the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Hebrew Bible.   In some sense, their question seems to mirror their own perspective as a group formed and shaped through heredity.  It shows that they understand the notion of resurrection to be a continuation of earthly life, including marriage -- and thus, my study bible says, they mock the doctrine with this absurd scenario.

Jesus answered and said to them, "The sons of this age marry and are given in marriage.  But those who are counted worthy to attain that age, and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry nor are given in marriage; nor can they die anymore, for they are equal to the angels and are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection.  But even Moses showed in the burning bush passage that the dead are raised, when he called the Lord 'the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.'  For He is not the God of the dead but of the living, for all live to Him."  Then some of the scribes answered and said, "Teacher, you have spoken well."  But after that they dared not question Him anymore.  Jesus responds to the question posed by the Sadducees by expressing the fullness of the understanding of resurrection as a complete change of life, a transfiguration.  He enforces this by asserting to them that they don't really understand the Scriptures.  How can Abraham and his sons be alive in God even if they are physically dead?  Note that some of the scribes affirm Christ's understanding of the Scripture (see Exodus 3:6).  My study bible comments that it is the clear teaching of Christ that the souls of the faithful who have departed this life are sustained before the face of God in anticipation of the final joy of the resurrection. 

It's interesting to think about how much of Christ's involvement in the temple at Jerusalem, and His discussion and dialogue with the leadership, seems to involve this subject of life:  of eternal life, resurrection, life after death.  Jesus brought it up Himself when He warned, in Monday's reading, of the stone that could crush to powder should it fall upon someone.  This was a warning about Judgment, and about the extinguishing of the possibility of eternal life.  Here in today's reading, Jesus is asked a direct question about life after death, which is meant to ridicule the entire concept of resurrection.  But it only serves to show the ignorance of the doctrine in those who pose the question -- and also their lack of understanding of the Scriptures, which the scribes affirm in their comment following Christ's answer.  How can God be the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob if God is not the God of the living, and these righteous yet live to God?  If we read the entire chapter of Exodus in which the incident of the Burning Bush appears, the Name of God given to Moses affirms the absolute quality of life -- of living and being itself -- that belongs to God:  I AM WHO I AM.  God is the I AM.   (See verses 14-16 of Exodus 3.)  God is the God of living and life itself, of being.  In this sense, we can begin to understand the connection between faith and resurrection.  For if there is no connection to this God who is, the I AM, then where does our life come from that may surpass and be transfigured beyond this world?  It is the connection of faith that makes "living to God" really possible in the sense which resurrection confers.  The word that Jesus uses for resurrection means both to "arise" (stand up) or "awaken" in Greek.  It these senses, it gives us a flavor of being called to attention, of taking our rightful place.  In Matthew's Gospel, this same word is used when Peter's mother-in-law is healed, and she arises and begins to serve those in the household (Matthew 8:15).  It's also the same word used when John the Baptist replies to those coming to him that God can raise up children to Abraham from the stones (3:8, Matthew 3:8).  It is the word Jesus uses to command the son of the widow of Nain to arise from his open coffin (7:14), and when He tells Jairus' daughter to arise (8:54).   We get a connection to faith in the same sense in which faith makes the healing connection to Christ, as, for example, in the healing of the woman with the blood flow (in the same reading as the healing of Jairus' daughter).  Faith makes a connection, completes a kind of circuit, a spark of the power from the One who is, the I AM.  In it we are healed, restored, called to take our rightful places, transfigured and transformed, brought to our true life.  Resurrection, in this sense, becomes the rightful fulfillment of what is possible for us as creatures of the One who is absolute being.  The great emphasis on life in all of Christ's teaching and preaching (for example, "I am the way, the truth, and the life - John 14:6) becomes finally, in this perspective, the revelation of the nature of God and hence His ministry.  He is here that those who are His followers, those with faith, the sheep whom He calls, may have life and that they may have it more abundantly (John 10:10).  This life is the light which illumines His words and all that we know of Christ's ministry (John 1:4).  It gives us possibilities which are endless.  By contrast, the feeble question of the Sadducees is an image of what is dead:  a focus on waiting for inheritance, heredity, ownership, property, a material perspective alone.  In what is perhaps an ironic connection, the Sadducees as a class would die out after the Siege of Jerusalem in 70 AD.   Let us think of the life Christ emphasizes over and over and over again -- and our own connection and capacity for what He offers.